The Fraud (53 page)

‘Of course it would be impossible. I knew that, when I went to Somerset House this morning.’

She did not say what other realisation had haunted her since she had arrived at Spitalfields and asked for John Palmer, and found him here and thrown herself upon his kindness.
This is how I must live now.
His room smelled; it was sparse and dirty, old canvases lay in corners, and there were empty paint bladders, and used brushes. This was how someone who
really
had little money lived. In other rooms in the house there was the sound of raised voices, mainly French.

‘Is this a house of silk-weavers?’

‘All the houses here are full of silk-weavers, they all work in big rooms at the top. They are Huguenots: Protestants escaped from France.’

‘But - why have you chosen to live so far from the centre, from other Artists?’

‘One must live where one’s life is, Francesca.’ There was a child crying and the sound of terrible coughing and in the street a drunken woman singing of
l’amour.
Whatever else this was, it was also the home of a failed artist, and Pall Mall was the home of a successful artist. The stove was lit but she saw that his supply of coal was low. Already she had seen a rat.

She wondered that he had been able to present himself so respectably day after day in Pall Mall: as if he could read her thoughts he said, ‘I would always, in any Weather, go down to the River, before I came to you. I thought of it as my Tidying-room! There are many who live much, much worse than me, Francesca. This room is not unbearable to me, I have lived here for a very long time, and I have - Friends here.’

‘And you walked home here,
every evening you came
, after dinner? It took me a very long time, this day.’

‘I was grateful for dinner, as you must have known Francesca. The walk was nothing, I was used to it.’

On the wall were pinned many charcoal drawings, some paintings - good drawings and paintings, it seemed to her - of people, of places; several of the same woman; one of Philip painting energetically. It caught Philip as he had been when he was younger, it caught him exactly, but the edges of the paper curled and held dust.

It was a room. It was a life.

‘Of course you must stay here, Francesca, if you can bear it, until you decide. Philip never bothered to come here once in his life. You are welcome to stay here. There are other places in the house I can sleep.’

‘Of course I could not do that!’

‘There are other places in the house I can sleep, Francesca,’ he said quietly, ‘I do assure you.’ And she suddenly thought:
perhaps he has another whole life here, here in Spitalfields.
Did he have a wife? a family? a life anyway they did not even dream of, cocooned in Pall Mall, with money. And she remembered the day she had seen him, the slice of bread secreted inside his jacket, and was ashamed.

‘I have food,’ she said quickly. In her basket she had bread and cheese and apples, and some small articles of clothing. And two guineas: all the money she had left - after Claudio had taken most of it, and some shared with Tobias - from the payment for her painting ‘from the French school’ that the lady with the high wig had clutched to her bosom in the coach. All the money she had, in fact, in the world.

John Palmer hesitated, looking at the food, and then declined; she had not the heart to eat in front of him, although she had not eaten since she left the house in Pall Mall early in the morning, with her basket and her Life, to attend the Experts in the Royal Academy.

He saw that she was exhausted; soon afterwards he left her, to make herself as comfortable as she might, saying they would speak again in the morning. The cesspit at the back of the houses in the street was so disgusting that she had to stop herself from retching as she squatted. She did not wash, for there seemed to be no water. She did not remove her clothes. She bolted the door as he had instructed and lay upon the bed in a kind of energetic exhaustion, thinking of everything that had happened on this extraordinary day. She was drifting and cold, thoughts jumbled:
Mr Hartley Pond’s face, her brother’s face, the name appearing under the skirt, walking on and on and on with her basket
: half-awake half-asleep she was suddenly aware of John Palmer’s voice calling her. She got up and unbolted the door, tousled and dis-oriented. French singing drifted in through the window,
l’amour, l’amour
. . .

‘I beg your pardon, Francesca.’ She understood at once that he had been drinking. ‘There is someone looking for you.’ At once her heart gave an unpleasant leap. ‘I did not know whether you wished to be found.’

Someone from Newgate Prison? Her brother come to murder her? ‘Who is it?’

‘James Burke.’

‘James Burke?’

‘Aye.’

‘Does he carry a cleaver?’ She half-laughed, and John Palmer smiled.

‘He does not.’ He lowered his voice slightly. ‘I would say, however, that he is in some disarray, which is an interesting thing in itself for I never saw James Burke in disarray in my life, even in all his Troubles!’

‘What do you mean? His “Troubles”?’

‘You do not know about his wife?’

She answered quickly. ‘A little only.’

John Palmer shrugged. ‘She gambles. He is always in need of money. He comes home here with me sometimes,’ he laughed grimly, ‘for a change.’

And she saw them: James Burke and John Palmer sometimes leaving Pall Mall together as night fell: the tall younger man and the squat older one, the shadow from their lanterns flickering and disappearing along Pall Mall.

‘Do you wish to be found by Mr Burke, my dear?’

With an effort she pulled herself back to this room in Spitalfields. ‘Would you stay?’

‘If you wish.’

‘Please.’

While John Palmer went to fetch him she wearily sat on the only chair. She caught her hair back from her face again, as if it mattered.

James Burke could not hide his surprise to see her sitting, so disordered and disarranged: John Palmer caught his look. ‘Well there you are, James,’ he said, ‘that is how it is. Here is the Painter - the most famous Painter in London this evening I do believe, and I do agree she should, rather, be drinking Champagne!’ And if James Burke was surprised at what he saw, the other two people in the room were surprised also, for it was odd indeed to see the dealer so disordered and dishevelled, and his hair so wild. He looked like an artist himself rather than the immaculate, calm, beautifully-groomed art dealer of note, and for a split second Grace’s hands itched in the old familiar way to catch him, to catch indeed the faces of the two of them whom she had known for so long: the same faces and yet, now, so different.

‘Excuse me for only one moment,’ said John Palmer, ‘I do not have champagne but I know where there is wine and I think wine will be useful. Do not damage her, James.’

‘I will not damage her,’ said James Burke, and Grace Marshall said nothing, and John Palmer disappeared into the darkness and a French woman’s voice screamed outside the window.

‘
L’argent! Où est l’argent, Monsieur?
’ And the rat, or another rat, ran across the room to the safety of the skirting board.

‘
L’argent!
’ screamed the voice again.

‘
L’argent
,’ repeated James Burke
.
He sighed suddenly. ‘Money: well, it is always, in the end, about money.’ She did not speak. He stood beside the fire that had gone out. ‘Grace, I have to ask you one question. Why did you do it?’

‘I had nothing left to lose.’ She answered him blankly, as if he was a stranger. ‘It does not matter now.’

‘Yes, it does matter - you need my help now more than ever! What can you do, Grace, by yourself, no matter what you have proved? You cannot even lease a Studio by yourself, you are a Woman.’ And the mask that he had so carefully in place at all times, trembled. ‘You do not understand what you have done, Grace, and not just to your Brother. You have made fools of the Academicians of the Royal Academy - that is one thing (and you were lucky that Sir Joshua Reynolds was out of Town). But you have made a lifelong Enemy of Mr Hartley Pond, and Mr Hartley Pond is a dangerous man. He - the great and powerful Critic - was heard by every Royal Academician to praise the Soul of a painting done by a
housekeeper.
I do not think you can survive as an Artist in London at the moment. Although I know it is your Dream.’ He sighed. ‘One more Painting, that was all you needed to do.’

‘I
told
you I would not paint another. My business with you was finished.’

‘No,’ he said.

‘You do not understand,’ he said.

‘You have never understood,’ he said.

But she looked at him in dread, as if she did, for she saw that the mask was gone: it was James Burke, the man she had loved: she knew the face before her now better than any face in the world and she could not bear it.

‘Your business with me will never be finished, Grace, although we do not speak of it. Because of the child.’

She was so immediately angry that she stood up in the small dim room. He could tell by her face that these words had crossed some boundary in her heart but he could not hold back now: the grey eyes flashed. ‘My wife could not - would not - have children. Until there was
our
child I did not know if the fault was with me. That was the only child I could ever have.’

She answered him like lightning. ‘Do not say that! It was you who told me many months ago that the Past was over! You could have had children with a hundred women!’

‘No.’ His voice was low. ‘I was wrong. The Past is never over. You know well that I loved you, Grace.’

‘If you loved anything you loved my Talent!’ But she knew it was not true.

‘I loved you, Grace. I left England at once because’ - and she saw that he struggled to make his words fair - ‘because I saw that you would not allow yourself to - to be trapped to give me what I wanted so much. I could not bear it.’

Her control was gone, the words came out wildly. ‘You left me by myself that day, to go to Meard-street alone and I not only lost the child -
I lost myself!
I
will not
be blamed for
your
loss also! you could have found plenty of women to please you!
I could not have done it!
I had already forfeited too many years - and then - now - when I had done the Painting, you would not pay me and I lost something else that day that you know nothing of - no! do not ask me - so I did it James because I had nothing left to lose and I was suddenly determined that if I was not to be paid money I would at least be paid
attention
by all the other Artists, I had to be recognised somehow - that I was one of them! You do not know everything about me now, James Burke -
fighting to be a Painter has cost so much - it had to be worth it somehow
!’ Just at that moment John Palmer lurched back into the room with an armful of bottles. He was not too drunk to feel the atmosphere; her words
it had to be worth it somehow
seemed to echo in the stuffy, dirty air of the room with the torn canvases and the paint and the old brushes.

‘Are you all right, my dear?’

Her heart was beating fast. Slowly she recovered herself, slowly she sat again on the chair. She did not speak. James Burke did not speak. John Palmer put the bottles on the table, stoked up the fire with the last of his coal, looked for containers to drink from. He filled them with the wine: one was a glass, one was a cup, one was a dish.

‘I’ll drink from the dish,’ he said and he pushed the glass towards the woman and the cup towards the man. ‘To Art,’ he said, lifting the dish to his mouth and some of the red liquid trailed downwards on to the floor. ‘To the Artist who fooled the lot of them!’

James Burke did not move. Grace seized the glass and drank gratefully: anything to remove the face of the man who still stood beside the fireplace. Then she rose and took the cheese and bread from her basket. She and John Palmer tore at the bread: James Burke at first touched nothing, then at last he came to the table and drank the cupful of wine in one long swallow. There was only the one chair: finally the gentlemen sat, their knees almost touching, on the small divan that served as John Palmer’s bed. He kept their various drinking containers filled, as a good host would.

‘So you’re a Forger then, James Burke?’ John Palmer’s cheeks were red now.

James Burke looked down at his cup, filled it again from the bottle, and did not answer directly. Then he spoke for a moment as if she was not there. ‘I have put it about that she fooled me too, that others were the Forgers. I may escape this time but’ - and he smiled dryly at John Palmer - ‘I imagine my Reputation will never be quite the same.’ Again he drank the cup of wine quickly. ‘My Wife has had a terrible shock, she believed I was a bottomless purse and it has now been made very clear to her this day by my Bankers that I am not.’ He emptied yet another cup of wine down his throat, not looking at either of them; then he turned to her again at last. ‘How did you start a Rumour that swelled so quickly?’ he said dryly.

‘That part was easy,’ she said, speaking in the same dry tone as he, ‘for it was you who taught me, James; you told me it was easy to start a Rumour. You told me you merely whisper something loudly at a Social Gathering. Some weeks ago, soon after the Auction, I went to the house in Brook Street. Miss Ffoulks was there and her friend Miss Proud who I trusted immediately.’ He nodded. ‘I told them the story -’

‘Everything?’

‘Not - everything. Many things. And I - almost - felt that Miss Ffoulks was not quite surprised - as if perhaps a puzzle was solved; she said she had often wondered about my Painting but had felt it impolite to ask - not like you, James,’ and she cast a quick look at him. ‘They had not, at that stage, seen anything of my work but they took my story on Trust, for which I shall be eternally grateful. The next day Miss Ffoulks and Miss Proud were to go to the Foundling Hospital where the great and the good, as you know, sometimes congregate. There they both murmured loudly in noble Ears.’ And John Palmer threw back his head and laughed heartily.