The Eleventh Year (14 page)

J
amie read
the letter again in the peaceful stacks where she was sorting out new books, and where time was endless. She wondered if her face reflected the fact that at nineteen, she felt old, undiscovered, forgotten, like the oldest book in the stacks, whom nobody ever checked out any more.

The stationery was lightweight but embossed with the Brighton seal, dragons meeting over a lion's head. Suddenly Lesley's world and hers seemed very far apart, and the Brighton seal was the symbol of the invisible partition separating them—that, and the ocean, and a war.

Jamie folded up the letter, thinking: She wants more than anything to get married in Westminster Abbey and become Lady Reeve. And she would enjoy it. She'd be the focal point of artistic gatherings, where it wouldn't matter whether Clarence Chatterton approved or disapproved of her skills as a painter. She'd be the new Vanessa Bell, and everyone would come to see her because of her charm and her charming young husband. She closed her eyes, picturing Lesley in a sitting room filled with Impressionist oils, drinking tea spiked with whisky in Sèvres china cups. The old, the new, the risqué, the traditional. All were a part of Lesley Richardson, whose grandfather was an earl and whose father had come from the South Side of Chicago.

Jamie put the letter carefully back in her bag and rose. It was time to lock up the stacks and go home. Justin Reeve's behavior worried her too. It didn't seem to make sense. She wished she could meet him and judge for herself whether he was right for Lesley. Jamie walked home pensive and troubled.

A
t the start of September
, the entire Brighton household moved back to the tall, red brick mansion in Kensington, London, that had housed his forebears for several centuries.

The head butler and cook, most of the ladies' maids, and Lord Brighton's valet always came with him from house to house; there remained only the shadow of a staff to take care of the empty Yorkshire mansion and its gardens. Lady Priscilla supervised the move and thought that a bit of London would be good for Lesley before having to return to Vassar.

Lesley felt empty. She wondered when Justin would say something to her. What he did say was: “We'll go to Covent Garden together, darling, and walk through Soho. London in early fall isn't as romantic as Paris, but I like it well enough.” She thought his tone was too cheerful; she felt miserable, because the notion of separation was bad enough, but without a commitment, it was unimaginable. She simply didn't want to think about any of its ramifications.

Her mother was watching her cautiously. And several days after the move back to London, she said offhandedly: “My love, summer romances are wonderful if one puts them in their right perspective. They're a bit like shipboard flirtations. One shouldn't take them too seriously.”

Lesley felt the shock at the pit of her stomach. She blinked, speechless. Not take Justin seriously? They'd made love in her bed, on the green grass behind age-old abbeys, in inns and hostels. She'd given him her body, allowed him to teach her how to touch his, how to respond. She
loved
him! Not take him
seriously?
He was the only young man she had ever encountered who could fill her needs, who understood her. She spoke to him as she had only dared speak to Jamie. With him, her usual reserve could fall, like an unnecessary cover, and she could glow as herself, without fear of ridicule or judgment. She could not answer her mother.

But nevertheless, Lesley felt humiliated. If Justin had only spoken, said one single sentence about their future, she would have been able to reassure her mother. Justin had said he loved her. He was of impeccable lineage, so that even her grandfather would find him a good match. Justin would come through, and this was absolutely the man she wanted.

There was nothing lovely about London in September, she thought with rancor. It rained almost daily. And daily she counted the remaining hours until departure time. She dressed three times every day, putting fresh flowers in her hair, buffing her nails—hoping that he would come by unexpectedly, or telephone or send a note. After the first few days it was becoming uncomfortable to sit with her mother having tea; they both skirted the subject with painful awareness. Lesley could feel the rage building up inside, like a tidal wave; but there was no outlet for her to express it. With the rage came a tremendous bewilderment. His absence didn't make
sense
!
She smiled and pretended to eat, getting up in the night with intense nausea. Anything would have been better than this silence.

I have to do something, she finally decided. She put on her simplest outfit, a little Chanel suit of dove-gray jersey, and tied a silk scarf around her neck. Her burgundy boots matched the leather pocketbook, and the small gray hat matched the suit. She went downstairs and called the chauffeur. He would drive her in the silver Bentley to the town house of the Lady Adele Reeve, on Upper Brook Street. She wondered what she would say, appearing unannounced at their house at five o'clock. That was teatime. If he and Adele were entertaining…But at least he'd be home from the gallery.

The chauffeur opened the door, and she walked up the porch steps to the old stone house, narrow and tall, bordered by roses. She was suddenly very much afraid. But better to face him, once and for all. She rang the doorbell. A young maidservant answered. In a high-pitched voice, Lesley said: “Please inform Lord Clearwater that Miss Richardson is here to see him.”

The uniformed girl, about her own age, led her into a small sitting room. Everything was decorated in Louis XVI furnishings, and as she sat down in a small chair with dainty legs, she thought that Adele must have felt awkward in this environment. Probably the contessa, their mother, had selected everything, and Justin, who was rightful heir to the house, had kept it intact. She loved the ensemble of rose-colored materials, all in varying hues, and the magnificent oils on the wall: Vermeer, Hals, the old Dutch masters. In the corner was a gilded medallion with a Madonna and child by Raphael. A different world. I wouldn't have thought it of Justin, she said to herself. He belongs better with the Bloomsbury set, in furniture that's more comfortable, less old-fashioned.

She went to the window. It overlooked the back garden, with trimmed hedges and beds of autumnal blooms. A young man she had never seen was sitting on a wrought-iron bench, just below her, holding what looked to be a canvas on his lap. Curious, Lesley stepped toward the window, opened it to let in the air and take a better look at the man.

Then she saw Justin. He was walking out of the house into the garden, toward the young man. She hadn't seen him in ten days, not since she'd come back to London. She could picture what he looked like beneath the dark-blue suit, his muscular shoulders, the small, firm buttocks.…She shut her mind against the memory and listened instead.

“Well, Thomas, let's see this marvel of yours,” Justin was saying, sitting down on the bench next to the young man. Lesley could see them perfectly, though she was partially hidden by the rose damask curtain of the window.

“I used that mixture of yours for the patina,” Thomas replied, handing over the canvas. Lesley, intrigued, bent over, and as she did so, Justin lifted it up to get a better perspective for himself. She was amazed. The image was a different version of the medallion on the wall of this very sitting room: a perfect Raphael Madonna, holding the Christ child, looking down upon Him placidly. This Madonna was tilting her head the other way, and the child's clothing was folded differently and of another color.

“Evidently you did a good job, old boy,” Justin stated. Lesley wet her upper lip, blinking. But the Raphael…? She'd researched Raphael so thoroughly for her class with Professor Tonks, head of the Art Department at school. What was lying before Justin was something from the Italian Renaissance, and yet their words . . .

“What sort of price do you think you'll get for it?” Thomas asked.

“Oh, I'm not sure, these days. I must find myself an aficionado of Florence in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Right now the vogue seems to be toward modern. There are new trends in Paris that are putting Matisse behind the times, and he's no longer considered the Master.”

“Still, Justin, for a Raphael…time is endless.”

The phrase seemed to amuse them both. Justin tapped the other on the shoulder, laughed. “I worry sometimes that dust from old English abbeys won't do the trick, because the air had to be somewhat different in Tuscany. But the period's relatively similar. You mixed it up with that linseed formula I blended for you? Let me see the cracks….”

“It's in the cracks: old dust from ancient times, my friend. I worked on this one very hard—I think it's perfect.”

“Still, things are getting too dangerous, Tommy. The problem I had with the Blake you did for me, which that god damned American in Paris thinks is a fake—”

“But my work was impeccable.”

“Yet Gertrude Stein's brother, Leo, is an expert. He knows a good deal about art—and he claims William Blake never did such a piece.”

“Of course he didn't. We wouldn't ever be stupid enough to do a reproduction—that's child's stuff! Any idiot could catch that. Among the collectors, it's known exactly who possesses which masterpiece of record. But what we've got to offer are recently discovered works that have been dug up in small-town auctions…that sort of thing. Any connoisseur would want a hitherto-unknown Blake—or better yet, a Raphael. It will become the talk of London…or Paris!”

“Or whichever jail they place me in, old chum. It's getting very hot here. You're all right. But I'm not. I come from old stock, Tom. My sister means the world to me. She'll never marry if our name is tarnished. And I really am afraid. This last affair with Stein has made ugly noises in Paris. With echoes across the Channel. Even in Yorkshire, some of my father's oldest friends looked at me very strangely….”

“You're becoming unhinged, Clearwater.”

“No. Simply realistic. I'm going to enlist, Thomas. And ask to be sent far away. The Far East. So that people will forget the Blake and this can die down and Adele can live freely while I'm out of mind.”

“And you can die, period.”

“Maybe. But the my family's honor still means something to me.”

“You have an odd code of values,” the other stated, shaking his head.

Lesley slowly pushed the windowpane back into place and groped for the nearest seat. She removed her hat, felt her cheeks, which were burning. She felt intensely sick to her stomach, and the room was reeling around her. She had removed her gloves, and now she found a small silver bell. With a clammy hand, she agitated it several times before the young maid returned. She looked apologetic. “I'm so sorry, Ma'am, but Lord Clearwater had an important business meeting to attend to, and I wasn't able to catch him in time. He should finish momentarily—I saw the gentleman fetch his hat and coat from Smithers.”

“It's all right, thank you, but I'm going to be sick, and I need a powder room,” Lesley cut in. Together they hurried into a small corridor, and then the girl opened a door and Lesley saw a marble and blue-silk bathroom, with monogrammed linen towels hanging from silver racks. She nodded, and the girl shut the door behind her just in time for Lesley to bend over the sink and vomit. Finally she finished, poured water from the taps, washed her face, rinsed her mouth. In the mirror her face looked puffy, her eyes bloodshot. She sat down on the toilet seat and held her face in her hands, trembling. But who am I to judge? she thought. He's the man I love. Who knows what's pushed him to do these things? Maybe it's worry over a dowry for Adele. Maybe there isn't any family inheritance left, and he doesn't want his sister to pay for any wastefulness on his father's part. Or maybe it's for me—so he doesn't have to marry a girl who's richer than he is.