Unfinished Portrait (25 page)

‘And the girl?'

‘That's what made it worse, actually. It would have been bad enough if it had been one of the flibberty-gibbets who giggled every time they saw a man. But it was the head girl, Marianne Davis, who had a place at Oxford waiting for her.'

‘Do you know what happened to them?'

‘Unsurprisingly, there was a clampdown, but I heard later that she was expecting a child, so I doubt she ever got to Oxford.' Miss Pemberton squared her shoulders. ‘All in all, it was a nine days' wonder,' she said dismissively. ‘I'm surprised you're interested in it.'

‘I'd heard the episode referred to, and thought I should check.' Rona leant forward and switched off the recorder. ‘Thank you so much, Miss Pemberton. You've been extremely helpful. I won't take up any more of your time.'

Miss Pemberton rose with her. ‘I'm glad to have been of help,' she said.

As before, Rona had her lunch at the coffee house, thinking over the interview. There'd been nothing really new, but at least it could be ticked off her list. Which, she thought reluctantly, left Elspeth's parents. They were a glaring omission among her interviewees, and she was tempted yet again to put off seeing them. But as she'd told Max, she couldn't delay indefinitely, and on the practical side, she could make a detour to Chilswood on the way home.

Before her resolve weakened, she took out her mobile, looked up the number Gwen Saunders had given her, and tapped it out.

‘Hello, yes?' It was a woman's voice, breathless and excited.

‘Mrs Wilding? This is Rona Parish. I—'

‘Oh, Rona! I hope I may call you that? Have you heard? Has Naomi been in touch?'

Rona frowned, puzzled. ‘I'm sorry, I don't—'

‘Then you haven't! Such wonderful news, I can scarcely believe it! We've had a letter from Elspeth!'

Rona gasped, her planned speech flying out of her head. It didn't matter; Mrs Wilding was continuing unabated. ‘It came this morning, out of the blue! She says she's well, and hopes to be home in the spring! Isn't it the most incredible news?'

‘Yes,' Rona stammered, ‘it certainly is. You must be so . . . relieved.'

‘Oh, I can't tell you! But since you didn't know, you must be phoning about something else?'

‘Yes, I . . .' With an effort, Rona pulled herself together. ‘I'm in Buckford at the moment, and was wondering if I could call on you on my way home? But please do say if—'

‘That would be perfect! We've been wondering when we'd hear from you, and now we can show you Elspeth's letter. What time should we expect you?'

Rona twisted her wrist to check her watch. ‘In about an hour?'

‘We'll look forward to it.'

She switched off the phone and closed her hand round it, her thoughts whirling, until a discreet cough caused her to look up, to find the waitress at her side.

‘I said, would you like anything else?'

‘Oh, sorry; no thanks. Could I just have the bill, please?'

Has Naomi phoned?
Mrs Wilding had asked. And it
was
surprising she'd not heard from her – until she remembered Naomi hadn't her mobile number. Quickly, she dialled home, to find a message waiting.

‘Rona – it's Naomi. You'll never believe this, but we've heard from Elspeth! The parents have, too – it was Mary's death that did the trick. You thought it might, didn't you? Please call me as soon as you get this message.'

The bill was placed on the table in front of her, and Rona took out her purse. On reflection, she decided to postpone returning Naomi's call until she'd spoken to her parents. By then, there might be other things to ask her.

It was starting to rain as Rona drew up outside the Wildings' house, and the wind was getting stronger. She turned up her coat collar and hurried up the path, but before she could press the bell, the door opened and Hazel Wilding stood beaming at her. She was a small, round woman with a halo of frizzy hair and a pair of spectacles hanging on a chain round her neck.

She reached for Rona's hand and drew her into the warm hall. ‘Come in, come in, Rona! How nice to meet you – I'm Hazel! What a horrible day it's turning into!' She raised her voice. ‘Richard! Rona's here!'

For a disoriented minute, Rona expected the Richard Wilding she'd met to materialize, but it was his father who came down the stairs and firmly shook her hand. He was as tall as his son and with the same penetrating eyes, but such hair as he had was sparse and totally white.

‘Come into the sitting room,' Hazel said, bustling ahead of Rona into a room where a fire burned cheerfully in the grate. Seeing her glance appreciatively at it, she added, ‘When we moved to somewhere smaller, our first requirement was a chimney. For all your central heating, you can't beat an old-fashioned fire.'

She waved Rona towards the sofa facing it, and took an envelope from behind the clock.

‘Before we start answering your questions,' she said, ‘you might like to read this.'

Rona took it, noticing it had been posted in London the previous day. The letter inside was headed with the same date, but no address was given, and the writing, in thick black ink, was in italic script – a work of art in itself, though not easy to read.

Rona would have liked to read it again more slowly, but Mrs Wilding, who'd been watching her expectantly, was holding out her hand for its return, and she reluctantly relinquished it.

‘We could have done with something of the sort a good few months ago,' Richard Wilding said dryly. ‘It would have saved a lot of worry, and as Naomi no doubt told you, Rona – I may call you Rona, since you're younger than my daughters? – we didn't get nearly as much of her message as Elspeth had intended, and even that only weeks later. Not that she could have known, of course.'

But she did, Rona thought; though Elspeth couldn't admit it, she'd read of her ‘disappearance' and phoned her brother for an explanation. If only, at that stage, she'd allowed him to reassure her parents.

‘It's certainly good news that she'll be home soon,' she said diplomatically, ‘and also, of course, that she's painting again. I believe she'd been rather in the doldrums before she left?'

‘That followed on from Chloë's death,' Hazel said, her eyes filling with ready tears. ‘She wasn't thinking straight for a long time after that. You know about Chloë?'

‘Yes, a very sad business.'

‘Such a
waste
! She was a lovely girl, and round here so often, she was almost like a daughter to us.' She dabbed at her eyes. ‘But I mustn't be maudlin. When I heard you'd be contacting us, I sorted out some of Elspeth's things I thought you'd like to see.'

She produced a large folder and seated herself next to Rona on the sofa. ‘I kept all the children's drawings when they were little, never dreaming that Elspeth's would be of any more interest than the others'. Now, I'm told, American universities would pay good money for them. Not that they're for sale, mind.'

Rona turned over the large sheets of paper, trying to see them through Max's eyes. To her, the earlier ones looked much like the offerings of children everywhere – bright colours spilling over the lines, round suns and square houses and stick ladies with triangular skirts.

But then, gradually, they became more subtle as an awareness developed – surely precociously – of perspective, line and colour. At the top of each sheet, someone – no doubt her mother – had noted the age at which the picture had been drawn, and by nine or ten the technique was noticeably more assured – horses jumping over fences, their bodies twisting in the air; the musculature in a man's leg as he leapt to catch a ball – the kind of detail, no doubt, that had so excited Miss Pemberton.

‘It's amazing how quickly she developed,' Rona said, since some comment seemed called for. ‘I believe her grandfather was an artist?'

‘Well, he taught art, but he modestly described himself as a weekend painter. I suppose she might have inherited some of his genes.'

Hazel glanced down at some papers in her hand. ‘These are her school reports; you won't want to read them now, but you're welcome to take them with you, provided, of course, you return them.' She smiled tremulously. ‘Last week, I wouldn't have let them out of the house, but now I've heard from her and know she's well, I can afford to relax a little.'

‘I'd love to borrow them, thank you,' Rona said, slipping them into her briefcase, ‘and I promise to let you have them back within a week or two.'

For the next hour or so, her recorder primed, she listened to the retelling of Elspeth's childhood – her frustrations, her first day at school, the fateful gift of a paint box, and the transformation it wrought in her. Most of it, Rona had already heard from Naomi, less charitably slanted, but there were new stories too that helped to put flesh on the bones of what was essentially still an elusive figure. And, in the course of the telling, Chloë's name came up again and again.

‘It was tragic,' Hazel ended, ‘that after all those years together, they were estranged at the time of her death.'

‘Why was that?' Rona asked gently, curious to know the interpretation Elspeth's parents put on it. It was surprisingly candid.

‘Jealousy, pure and simple,' Richard said uncompromisingly. ‘This chap fell for Chloë, and Elspeth couldn't take it.'

‘Richard—'

‘You know it's true, my dear. She made such a fuss, for God's sake, that Chloë broke off the relationship, but even that wasn't enough. God alone knows if it was Elspeth or What's-his-name who proved the last straw, but between them they pushed her too far.'

‘Elspeth fell apart,' Hazel said in a low voice, twisting a handkerchief between her fingers. ‘We couldn't reach her. Even at the funeral, though she was standing beside us, she held herself apart, and the anguish on her face broke my heart. I wanted desperately to hold her, comfort her – you do, when your child's hurt, no matter how old she is – but it was our son she turned to. He took her back to London and helped her through the first few weeks. I dread to think what might have happened if he hadn't.'

Richard Wilding cleared his throat. ‘I think that's enough soul-searching, my dear. Rona already knows the facts, after all.'

‘But I have a feeling she thinks badly of Elspeth for not telling us where she is, and I want to explain that's my fault rather than hers. Because if I'd known, I'd have gone to her – I wouldn't have been able to stop myself – and she didn't want that. She needed to be alone, away from all of us, while she rebuilt her life. Hard though it's been, it was the right thing to do.'

By the time Rona left the Wildings, it was dark and the rain had set in. Max would be home before her, and she texted, rather than phoning, to let him know where she was. Conversation at this point would have dissipated the impressions and nuances of the last couple of hours, and she needed the solitude of the drive home to assimilate them. Time enough to discuss it all with him over supper.

This book she was embarking on had all the trademarks of a tragedy, she reflected uneasily, her eyes on the swathes of light cast by her headlamps. A tragedy for Elspeth, for Hazel, above all for Chloë. If, as was hoped, Elspeth returned home in the spring, it might at least be resolved for her and her mother, but Chloë was beyond anyone's help. How must it feel to be so distraught, so desperately unhappy, that the only way to end it was by killing oneself? And what a burden of guilt, either justified or not, it bestowed on those left behind.

FOURTEEN

‘
S
o in the spring you'll be able to interview Elspeth herself,' Max commented, checking the steak under the grill. ‘That's quite a turn-up, isn't it?'

‘But it's four or five months away,' Rona objected, ‘which means I'll have to mark time, in case she contradicts whatever I've written. I need to see her
now
, Max!'

‘Then track her down. She has to be
somewhere
.'

‘Marcia said she's in Scotland, but the letter had a London postmark, and Gwen Saunders sent papers to a post box there. It doesn't make sense.'

‘Why does Marcia think Scotland?'

‘Because that's what Elspeth told them, though Richard did say they'd only her word for it.'

She sighed, watching him drain vegetables over the sink. ‘The trouble is, very few people have spoken to her, and they're all self-contained units. So Richard wouldn't know what she told Gwen or her dealer, and vice versa.'