Dilly Court - Nettie’s Secret

Published by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers 2019

Copyright © Dilly Court 2019

Jacket Photographs: © Gordon Crabb/Alison Eldred (Girl); Claire Ward (building); Shutterstock.com(all other images)

Cover design by Claire Ward © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2019

Dilly Court asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008287719

Ebook Edition © May 2019 ISBN: 9780008287726

Version: 2019-10-17

For my great-granddaughter,

Marcy Charlotte-Ann Avant.

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Keep Reading …

About the Author

Also by Dilly Court

About the Publisher

Covent Garden, 1875

Robert Carroll appeared in the doorway of his attic studio, wiping his hands on his already paint-stained smock. A streak of Rose Madder appeared like a livid gash on his forehead. ‘Nettie, I want you to go to Winsor and Newton in Rathbone Place and get me some more Cobalt Blue, Indian Yellow and Zinc White. I can’t finish this painting without them.’

Nettie looked up from the garment she had been mending. ‘Do you need them urgently, Pa? I promised to finish this for Madame Fabron. It’s the opening night of her play at the Adelphi, and she must have her gown.’

‘And I have to finish this commission, or I won’t get paid and we’ll find ourselves homeless. We’re already behind with the rent, and Ma Burton isn’t the most reasonable of souls.’

‘All right, Pa. I’ll go, but I thought we didn’t have any money, which was why we had nothing but onions for supper last night.’ Reluctantly, Nettie laid her sewing aside.

‘Food is not important when art is concerned, Nettie,’ Robert said severely. ‘I can’t finish my work without paint, and if I don’t get this canvas to Dexter by tomorrow there’ll be trouble.’ He took some coins from his pocket and pressed them into her hand. ‘Go now, and hurry.’

‘I know you think the world of Duke Dexter, but how do you know that the copies you make of old masters’ works aren’t passed off as the real thing?’ Nettie pocketed the money. ‘You only have Duke’s word for the fact that he sells your canvases as reproductions.’

‘Nonsense, Nettie. Duke is a respectable art dealer with a gallery in Paris as well as in London.’ Robert ran his hand through his hair, leaving it more untidy than ever. ‘And even if he weren’t an honest dealer, what would you have me do? Commissions don’t come my way often enough to support us, even in this rat-infested attic.’

‘I still think you ought to check up on him, Pa.’

‘Stop preaching at me, Nettie. Be a good girl and get the paint or we’ll both starve to death.’

‘You have such talent, Pa,’ Nettie said sadly. ‘It’s a pity to squander it by making copies of other people’s work.’ She snatched up her bonnet and shawl and left her father to get on as best he could until she returned with the urgently needed paints. Everything was always done in a panic, and their way of living had been one of extremes ever since she could remember. When Robert Carroll sold one of his canvases they lived well and, despite Nettie’s attempts to save something for the lean times to come, her father had a habit of spending freely without any thought to the future.

Nettie made her way down the narrow, twisting staircase to the second floor, where the two rooms were shared by the friends who had kept her spirits up during the worst of hard times. Byron Horton, whom she thought of as a much-loved big brother, was employed as a clerk by a firm in Lincoln’s Inn. Nettie had been tempted to tell him that she suspected Marmaduke Dexter of being a fraud, but that might incriminate her father and so she had kept her worries to herself. The other two young men were Philip Ransome, known fondly as Pip, who worked in the same law office as Byron, and Ted Jones, whose tender heart had been broken so many times by his choice of lady friend that it had become a standing joke. Ted worked for the Midland Railway Company, and was currently suffering from yet another potentially disastrous romantic entanglement.