The Fraud (54 page)

‘To really answer your question, John Palmer,’ said James Burke. ‘Whether I am a Forger or not, I was sure she was good enough - and I was proved right.’ And he shrugged. ‘But what shall you do now,
Signorina
?’ And he bowed from where he sat on the bed, an ironic gesture, and she knew he had recovered himself.

‘I cannot go back to Pall Mall, of course.’

‘I have this evening repaid the seven hundred guineas to your Brother.’

She looked at him sharply. ‘So you could have paid me, after all.’ His face closed.

‘I had already paid the other people involved. So I borrowed money this afternoon,’ he said. ‘At very high interest from my Bank, if you are so anxious to know of my affairs. I do not wish to be dragged through Law Courts.’

‘Nevertheless I cannot go back to him, for he will never forgive me for what I have done.’

‘Indeed. Euphemia said some of your clothes had gone.’

‘I could not take much.’

‘And your Paintings and your materials?’

‘I burned much of my work.’ She saw his face. ‘I kept two. Miss Ffoulks has one. The other is being - attended by a Friend.’

‘You do not have any Friends, Grace - present company and Miss Ffoulks excepted of course, and even these, after all, were friends of your Brother.’
And they both knew, Grace Marshall and James Burke, that they remembered (there in the room in Spitalfields) what she had told him, long ago in the golden days: that - apart from ghosts - he was her first and only friend: I cannot tell people the truth of myself she had said, I am a Fraud. But I do not need another friend ever in the world James, ever again, she had said, for I have you.

A long silence in the room as they drank red wine: if John Palmer felt the tensions he did not comment.

‘I do not, any longer - care for my brother,’ said Grace at last, out of the silence. ‘But I owe him very much of course, because he came back for me - the good things and the bad things, I know that. He came back to Bristol for me.’

‘You know they came from Bristol?’ John Palmer looked at the art dealer in surprise.

‘I told him many years ago,’ said Grace, ‘but my brother never knew that I had done so.’ And they gave no further explanation.

‘Philip must have
known
you could paint,’ said John Palmer again, shaking his head. ‘Surely no-one can take so little notice for twenty-five years, even if you are - forgive me, my dear - a Woman.’ He filled their containers with wine once again. There was only one candle and the wine shone red and now their faces flickered and danced as the candle grew low.

‘You did not notice, John,’ said James Burke.

‘I thought she was a Lady
amateur
. I never saw her work. You were a Dealer so I suppose you had the right to ask her. I was only grateful to be at the dinner-table so often.’ And they saw his face in the candlelight, the lines and the pain.

‘What shall you do, Grace?’ asked James Burke again. ‘You cannot stay here obviously - with respect, John Palmer, with respect,’ and the old man merely raised his drinking dish. ‘You do not have any Friends, Grace,’ he repeated.

She flashed at him. ‘You do not know everything of my Life now, James Burke. I have a Friend who knows my whole story, and he will help me.’ He looked at her as if she had hit him. She saw - but why should she care? He had broken his promise, he had not given her the money, and he had set this whole train of events in motion. ‘Both Miss Ffoulks and Miss Proud offered me a room. But,’ and for the first time they heard the wistful note in her voice, ‘I feel I cannot stay in London now. Perhaps I would be taken to Newgate Prison and pressed. I am a Frauder, after all.’

‘You would be safe here, and you can stay here as long as you can bear it!’ said John Palmer. ‘I do little painting these days, and there are other places as I told you, where I can sleep.’

James Burke stood abruptly from the small bed. He turned to John Palmer. ‘I have something I need to say to her alone before I leave. Could I ask you, John, to let me speak privately, just for a moment . . .’

John Palmer ascertained from Grace’s face that she was not afraid. ‘My Friend lives only on the floor above,’ he said. ‘If you call loudly I will hear you,’ and he staggered, now, out of the door.

They had all drunk a great deal. In the small room there was some wine left in one of the bottles, the candle was fluttering at its end. James Burke leaned down and filled his cup and Grace’s glass. In the dim candlelight as he leaned over she saw: the mask was in place, he was totally contained.

‘Grace Marshall and her Mysterious Friend!’ he said and he raised his cup and red wine spilled slightly on to the table, and the red of the wine was caught in the wavering light. ‘If I had not loved you, Amazing Grace,’ he said, but his tone was mocking, not gentle now, ‘I would have loved you at the Royal Academy for it was magnificent! The Painting, as a Rembrandt, once my Colleagues had finished with it, was magnificent! And you, Grace, unmasking it, were magnificent also!’

‘Mr Gainsborough helped, but if you had not insisted, they would likely have stopped me,’ she said curiously.

‘I did not think that you could do it! I could not believe that you could do it! And, once you had started there was no going back: I understood that you may ruin me, but you would not betray me personally, and for that at least,’ again he made the mocking bow, ‘I am grateful. I have insisted all day long, to all who ask, that the Fraudulence must have been dealt with by others, that I was given False Papers. As the money has been returned in full I think there is very little anyone will want to do - and I do not think you will be taken to Newgate, and certainly will not be pressed. I have not heard that they press women there!’

‘Are you
sure
? I have heard that they have wheels and they press people.’

‘I do not think so. It is not I think an Offence to make Fools of people - now that the money has been returned that is perhaps the only real Offence left. It is your brother and Mr Hartley Pond who will never forgive you and - well, I am not sure who is the more dangerous if you will allow me to say so: I know your brother very well. As for the others, the Academicians and the Experts - they will cover up the story, I am sure it will not become publicly known that they were duped by a Woman, although it will always be known by them. But what I wanted to say to you in private is this: the Painting, I will be sorry if the Painting is damaged beyond recall by the ink - we shall see. The heavy varnish will have helped us and I believe we can sell it again if you are willing, for now it is notorious as well as beautiful and I have had two offers of two hundred Guineas by Members of the Academy if I can restore it!’

She looked at him incredulously. ‘Even though they
know
?’

‘
Because
they know, Grace.’

‘Half of that would belong to me then! Give me my share of the Money.’

He looked at her in the light that was left. He had leaned away from what was left of the candle, so that she could not see his face. ‘So then it is, in the end, the Money?’

‘Everything is, in the end, the Money,’ she said to him fiercely. ‘You taught me that. My brother taught me that. My life in London has taught me that.
I want to paint.
I want to be free to paint my way. It was for Money to buy my Freedom that I followed your ridiculous plan—’

‘It was hardly ridiculous.’

‘—and it is Money that I have now lost because you did not keep your word to me, and when you and John Palmer ask me what I shall do I cannot answer because, as everyone knows, as everyone has taught me,
Life itself is about Money! Money is the answer to everything!
’

He was very still then for a long moment. Then he emptied his glass, reached inside his coat. ‘However,’ he said coldly, ‘you have advised us that you have a Friend of your own who will assist you in your new Life. Tell him it will be best if you leave London.’ He pulled out a paper. ‘I gave your Brother his money in guinea coins and that exhausted my capacity for carriage. I have here a draft for one hundred guineas which I believe I will recoup yet, with
Girl Reading
. If you present it at my Bank, here -’ he showed her ‘- they will give you the money at once because I have already borrowed it and arranged it. I think anyone who did what you did at Somerset House deserves to be paid.’ He leaned across the small table towards her: the man she had loved.

‘And a part of me - the foolish part of me which you will not see again - is glad that it turned out this way for I shall treasure the faces of the Artists and the Experts and Mr Hartley Pond for as long as I live. I know very well of the Fashions and Frauds of the world I live in. I have had to praise them for years, and some of them I despise! You are a wonderful Painter - you are probably the most talented Painter living in London.’ The candle spluttered then at his verdict and then went out, but he went on speaking in the darkness as if nothing had happened. ‘You will never become a Royal Academician, Grace, but it does not matter because you are an Artist. A real one, not one to be honoured in that public way - you know you have been honoured privately by them anyway, and they will never forget it, and nor should you: you have to know now how good you are.’ And then, across the table in the darkness he put his hand upon her cheek, as he had done in the park when the pieman was calling his wares in the distance. The warm, strong hand lay there and because it was dark and therefore he could not see her she allowed herself to close her eyes, just for a moment, and in the dingy, cold room she let her cheek rest there, as if it belonged. For just that moment in the dark they sat there, the man and the woman.

Finally Mr James Burke took his hand away, stood up, accustomed his eyes to the darkness to find the door. ‘I will not be in touch again, Grace, but advise your - Friend to contact me with your whereabouts. I will try and send people to you, for such is your Notoriety already that even though you are a Woman, you will build up some sort of living as a Painter, I am certain.’

‘As a Freak? As a Fraud?’

‘It is not, exactly, as you planned. I understand that. Good luck, Grace.’

And James Burke would have gone then, except for one thing. There was the sudden sound of horses, then there was immediately a great shouting and banging and then Signore Filipo di Vecellio, followed with dismay by his old friend John Palmer, burst into the dark room.

‘
Where is she
? I have ascertained that she is not with Miss Ffoulks so she must be with you! She has no Friends of her own.
Where is she
?’

At first he did not see.

John Palmer was carrying a lighted candle; he moved forward reluctantly: the light and the shadows danced, and showed that James Burke stood by the door. Grace Marshall had stood also, at the sound of her brother’s voice.

At the sight of her Philip Marshall lost control completely. He lunged at his sister in the dim light, set upon her like a man possessed (as indeed he was), threw her so hard against the wall that she fell downwards. It took both James Burke and John Palmer to pull him off. And then hold him back from lunging again. ‘Judas!’ he kept spitting at James Burke, trying to free himself. ‘
Judas!
’

He screamed at his sister as she lay there. ‘I kept my promise! I came back for you! And you have destroyed my whole Life!’

From the floor Grace Marshall said faintly, ‘You should then, perhaps, have taken more care with mine.’

And then for what seemed like an eternity nobody said anything at all, just the sound of harsh breathing and the shadowy figures in the room: the woman thrown to the ground, the two men holding back a third - like figures in one of the Epic Paintings so beloved by certain of the Artists. Then finally the rustling of Grace Marshall’s petticoats as she at last slowly stood from where she had fallen. They all saw the blood upon her face and upon her gown. The men still held Philip tightly; he struggled wildly in their arms.

It was hard for the brother and the sister to see each other’s eyes in the dim uncertain light from the one candle.

With some difficulty Grace slowly gathered up her basket that held her life. The bank draft for one hundred guineas lay there on the dirty table beside the empty bottles. Silently Grace Marshall picked it up and walked out of the door.

Somewhere in the Spitalfields street the same drunken Frenchwoman still sang of
l’amour
in the dark, dark night.