Edward Marston - The Painted Lady

The glint returned to his eye and it troubled her once again.

‘What is Paris like?’ she said, trying to find a neutral subject.

‘Very beautiful?’

‘More beautiful than London?’

‘Oh, yes,’ he replied, proudly. ‘It does not smell any sweeter and it is just as noisy with all those people, but Paris, it was not destroyed by a fire like London. When I first come here, the city was still in ruins. It looked so ugly. Slowly, it is getting better.’

‘Will it ever rival Paris?’

He shrugged expressively. ‘I am French. To me, no city in the world will ever be as good as Paris.’ He beamed at her. ‘I’ll take you there one day. Would you like that, Lady Culthorpe?’

The directness of his question shocked her and she was lost for words as she considered its implications. A faint blush came to her cheeks. Noticing it at once, he gave her an emollient smile.

‘With your husband, of course,’ he added.

‘I’m still not sure if I should have taken the money,’ said Bale, guiltily.

‘Then I’d have taken it for you,’ said his wife.

‘All I did was to help a friend, Sarah.’

‘There was more to it than that.’

‘No, there wasn’t.’

‘Mr Redmayne employed you, Jonathan. He told you at the very beginning that he’d pay you for your work.’

‘But that’s the strange thing,’ said Bale, scratching head. ‘It did not really feel like work.’

‘Well, it felt like work to me, I know that. You laboured for hours every evening. We hardly saw anything of you.’

‘Mr Redmayne wanted it finished as soon as possible.’

‘And you did exactly what he asked of you,’ she pointed out, ‘so you ought be rewarded for your pains.’

‘What pains?’

Sarah was forthright. ‘You may not have felt any, but I did. So did the children. We missed you, Jonathan. It’s not enough for you to spend the whole day walking the streets in all weathers. When you get back home, you have to find something else to keep you away from us. I want to see my husband,’ she said, giving him an affectionate dig in the ribs. ‘The children want to see their father.’

‘I read to them every night.’

‘Yes — then you went straight back to that model.’

They were in the kitchen of their house in Addle Hill and Sarah Bale was tiring of her husband’s inability to accept the wage that he had earned. She was a stout woman of medium height with an energy that never seemed to flag and a love of her husband that was never found wanting. However, it did not mean that she was blind to Bale’s faults or slow to remind him of them. Above all else, she was a supremely practical woman and she knew how crucial the extra money was to the family. She gave him an impulsive hug.

‘It’s good to have you back again, Jonathan,’ she said.

‘You were the one who told me to accept Mr Redmayne’s offer,’ he remembered, ‘so it’s unfair to blame me for what happened.’

‘I’m not blaming you.’

‘I was so pleased to be asked, Sarah.’

‘So you should be. It was an honour.’

‘Mr Redmayne has done us so many favours in the past.’

‘And you’ve done favours for him. Don’t forget that.’

‘I wasn’t sure if I could do it at first,’ he admitted, ‘but, as soon as I picked up my tools, I felt as if I was back in the shipyard again. There’s something about the smell and feel of wood.’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It keeps you away from your family.’

It was only mild criticism. Sarah was very fond of Christopher Redmayne and always delighted to see him. When he had last called at the house, she expected him to ask her husband to help him solve another crime. Instead, it was Bale’s skill as a carpenter that was in demand. She was thrilled by the thought that a rising young architect should entrust such an important task to her husband, and, during his moments of self-doubt, had urged him on.

‘Mr Redmayne obviously liked what you did for him,’ she said.

‘He seemed very happy with my work.

‘What were his exact words?’

‘I can’t remember.’

‘You must do, Jonathan. Tell me what he said.’

‘He didn’t have time to say very much at all,’ recalled Bale. ‘His brother arrived and I felt that I was in the way.’

Sarah scowled. ‘Is that the infamous Henry Redmayne?’

‘Yes, my love — it is.’

‘How can such a fine gentleman as Mr Christopher Redmayne have such a disgraceful brother?’

‘It’s a mystery to me, Sarah. I’ve never met two siblings so unlike each other. Their father is the Dean of Gloucester Cathedral, as you know. A true Christian gentleman. He must be so proud of one son and so disappointed in the other.’

‘What exactly is Henry Redmayne like?’ she pressed.

Bale took a deep breath. ‘I will tell you…’

Henry Redmayne was the first member of the Society to arrive at Locket’s, the celebrated ordinary near Charing Cross, where excellent meals were served at fixed prices and regular hours. Frequented by the gentry, Locket’s was a babble of excited voices as Henry took his seat at the table. Sir Willard Grail soon joined him, sweeping off his hat before giving his friend a cordial greeting. Sitting beside Henry, he imparted his news.

‘Some devilish intelligence has come to my ears, Henry.’

‘Of what nature?’

‘It seems that we may have a competitor.’

‘What do you mean, Sir Willard?’

‘Araminta — I simply refuse to call her Lady Culthorpe — our own, dear, matchless Araminta is having her portrait painted.’

‘Really?’ said Henry, concealing the fact that he already knew. ‘What artist has been given the privilege of gazing upon her until he swoons with her beauty?’

‘That confounded Frenchman — Jean-Paul Villemot.’

‘This news is worrying.’

‘So it should be,’ said Sir Willard. ‘He has the advantage over us. While we can only approach her by letter or by sending her gifts, he is left alone with her in his studio. It’s monstrously unfair. In such a situation, Villemot may achieve what the four of us seek.’

‘Surely not,’ said Henry, confidently. ‘Culthorpe would not entrust his young wife to the man if he had the slightest doubt about him and Villemot has to beware of scandal. He would not dare to lay a finger upon Araminta.’

‘Yet women account him irresistibly handsome.’

‘Frenchwomen, perhaps — the English have more taste.’

‘That is not the case, Henry. More than one English rose has praised Villemot in my presence — Lady Hester Lingoe, for instance. She said that sitting for him was one of the most exhilarating experiences of her life.’

‘Everything is a most exhilarating experience to Lady Hester,’ said Henry, tartly. ‘Her emotions have the consistency of gunpowder. Apply the smallest amount of heat and she explodes into exaggeration. I remember her telling me once that reading Catullus in the original Latin had uplifted her soul to a new eminence. What nonsense! Besides, he went on, ‘we are not comparing like with like here, Sir Willard. The gorgeous Araminta is a species of saint. No woman with Lady Hester’s history could ever aspire to canonisation.’

‘I still have qualms about Villemot.’

‘Set them aside.’

‘I’ll not be bested by a foreigner.’

‘No,’ said Henry, boldly, ‘you’ll be bested by me, Sir Willard.’

Before the other man could reply, the waiter came up to their table and they ordered a bottle of wine. No sooner had the waiter gone than Elkannah Prout took his place, exchanging greetings with his friends before taking the empty chair at the table. The newcomer’s eyes were darting. His wig was so full and luxuriant that he looked like a ferret peering through a bush.