“Oh, was it painted for a Medici? Cosimo, I daresay. I had thought it must be from a church.”
“The family chapel,” he corrected happily. “I picked it up for a song at a little street auction in London. I would love to get ahold of the other two pieces. Traced the owner, but he knew nothing of the thing’s history. He bought it in Italy a few years ago, just the one piece, as an oddity, but found it didn’t hang well. It would hang well if I could get the rest of it. I wish I could do it.”
“I wish I could!” I heard myself say.
“Aye, it would be something to reassemble it. We haven’t much from such an early period of Italian art here in England. This predates Botticelli, daVinci and so on,” he continued to Kessler. “Mid-fifteenth century, the
quattrocento.
The central portion is thought to be the Christ child with angels, and the right door St. Joseph. A nativity scene it was, I believe. I came across a description of such a work in any case, and believe this is what I have a piece of. How did you come to know of it, Miss Smith?”
I shook my head. “I’ve never seen this before. I recognized Fra Lippi’s style from a convent in Florence.”
“Ah, you have been to Italy,” Mr. Gwynne said, looking at me with interest.
“Oh yes, I liked Italy best of all till . . .” Realizing Sir Ludwig was staring at me open-mouthed, I stopped to think what I was saying. I had been to Italy then, and other places. Unless I lied; unless I dreamed it in those strangely vivid dreams I had. And why had I stopped liking Italy best of all? I felt suddenly very warm, could almost smell the hot dust blowing through the olive trees.
Mr. Gwynne would have liked to discuss Italy, but realized from my sudden silence and Ludwig’s stare that I was distressed. “Let us have a cup of tea,” he said kindly. We left the gallery and went into the tasteless saloon for tea. Odd that with all his love of beauty and apparent wealth Mr. Gwynne could not have contrived a more pleasing saloon for himself. It was garishly red and blue, with plush and velvet everywhere.
“Strange your eye picking out my madonna,” Gwynne rattled on. “Not the most valuable piece in that room, not the prettiest, but the most curious I think. I mentioned I am trying to get the rest of it. Mr. Uxbridge over in Shaftesbury is said to have a line on something from the
quattrocento.
Painted on wood. I am in touch with him in writing. I was to go to him when that dreadful storm came up. Wouldn’t it be something if it were the large central panel! Then I would lack only the other door.”
I could hardly listen to his chatter. I kept seeing that saucy madonna, smiling at me in a knowing way surely never used by any madonna. It excited me strangely, touched off some responsive chord in that muddled mind of mine. I wanted to get away and think. I was little enough addition to the polite tea table chatter. We soon left, with Mr. Gwynne urging us to return, promising to show us more treasures, scattered about in rooms abovestairs.
“So you’ve been to Italy as well as Germany,” Sir Ludwig said as we went down to the carriage. “I hope you hadn’t come directly from one of those foreign shores before you fell off that stage, or we’ll never find out who you are.”
“I’m not sure about Germany.”
“It don’t rain in
libraries,
where people look at pictures of houses, Miss Smith. What is it about this madonna has you excited? Is it the thing’s age?”
“No. No, it’s not that.”
“Is it very valuable?”
“If it were all put together. . . but it’s not that. It’s more the mystery of it. The fact of its being broken up and the pieces scattered.” But of course it wasn’t that, either.
“What interests
me
is how our friend Lippi convinced a knowing gent like Cosimo he was painting anything other than a trollop. It must be a sacrilege to give a madonna so much the appearance of a baggage.”
“Cosimo was strangely tolerant of Fra Lippi’s pranks. He stopped locking him in his studio when he sneaked out the window on a sheet. But he was ill employed to do sacred paintings.”
He shook his head as we entered the carriage. “I feel it bizarre you remember such obscure facts, and can’t recall your own name. We’ll put notices in the papers, giving a description of you and where you are to be located.”
“No!”
“Why not?” he asked, blinking.
I felt deeply troubled, agitated to the marrow of my bones. “Not yet,” I prevaricated.
“My dear girl, if you come from some far distant corner of the kingdom such as Cornwall or Scotland, we will
never
learn who you are. It must be done. Too much time has been wasted already.”
“It can’t do any harm to wait a few more days. Let me think—try to remember. Please!” There was a wildly desperate note in my voice. I heard it with wonder, and so, I fear, did Sir Ludwig. I couldn’t help it. I was afraid.
“Have you been telling me the truth?” he asked baldly. “Are you in some sort of trouble? Have you done something foolish—stolen something?” His hands gestured vaguely to denote his inability to categorize my crime.
“No! I don’t think so. It’s not like that. It’s worse than that.”
“Good God, you haven’t
killed
someone!” he shouted.
“Don’t be absurd.” But I felt a moisture spring out on my forehead and between my shoulderblades here in the cool carriage. I nearly fainted for the awful feeling of doom that came over me. I felt weak, trembling. Was it only Fell’s ‘fear of the unknown’ that distressed me so?
Sir Ludwig said no more on the matter, but tucked the blanket around me to stop my shivering. “I had planned to go on into the village and pick up some newspapers. It would save having the horses put to again. You have no objection? There might be some mention of you.”
“Please do it,” I said, recovering rapidly at this indication he would not blazon my story across the news sheets.
“If you remember anything, anything at all, tell me. I cannot believe you have run seriously afoul of the law. Darting away from home for one reason or another is more like it. I want you to promise you will tell me.”
“I will.”
I don’t know what he could have been thinking. My reactions certainly indicated guilt. “We’ll speak of other things,” he went on. “This distresses you too much. You will be wanting to pick up a few personal items in Wickey I imagine. Why don’t you do that while I arrange to have newspapers sent to me?”
“I do need things, but I have no money.”
“You can repay me when you discover your family, if it will make you feel better.”
“What if I never do?”
“Then you will have a long time to work off the debt,” he pointed out reasonably, refusing to comfort me with sympathy. I had never found the German people to be overly encumbered with sympathy. Their loud voices might give rise to the notion they are emotional, but the voice is more likely to be raised in anger, or even cheer. Not sympathy.
“Your sister will not require a governess for the rest of her life,” I returned, taking up his practical tone.
“By the time Abbie is popped off, Annie will need a keeper. You must allow me to apologize for her. She was a dear when she was more herself, younger. She still is at times, but she becomes senile, or mischievous. I’m not at all sure she couldn’t keep herself under better control if she wanted. It must be wonderful to be able to blurt out whatever is in your head, and know you will be excused for it, however outrageous.”
I had not observed Sir Ludwig to use much restraint on his tongue, but I didn’t feel like an argument. “Does she really believe in ghosts?”
“Only since she discovered it irks me.”
We were driving past my Damascus again, and again I looked at the place helplessly. “You wouldn’t—you couldn’t possibly have been coming to see
me
that night you got down from the stage?” he asked, frowning. “I am a mile farther away than Gwynn, and as you were not going
there
—is it possible you were en route to Granhurst? The house seemed familiar to you . . .”
“I don’t think so. Were you expecting someone?”
“No. When you run out of sane ideas you start coming up with nonsensical ones. Now what was a well-traveled lady with a good knowledge of art doing on the stage to Winchester—or possibly on to London. More peculiarly, why did she get off that stage, in the middle of a storm?” We sat in silence for a long minute. “I wonder if you weren’t going
to
anywhere in particular, but getting off the stage because of some danger there. Maybe you recognized someone on it—or took the notion that whoever was going to meet you represented danger . . .” He looked for signs of acceptance of these theories.
I regarded him disconsolately. “Well, dammit, there must have been
some
reason!” he shouted, turning German on me again. “The only thing that has interested you in the least is that painted door. Is it possible you were going to see it?”
This I could credit. I had strong feelings about it, but the facts didn’t bear me out. “Gwynne says not.”
“We should have asked him if he was in contact with any lady about it. We didn’t ask him that specifically. I’ll go back later, or send him a note.”
We reached the village and had the carriage stabled at the inn. It was my first public foray into Wickey. I had met several of the inhabitants at the rectory, but never gone out. Knowing I was a subject of lively gossip, I was reluctant to venture into the shops. Some of these feelings must have been evident on my face. “Do you want me to go with you?” he asked.
“No thank you.” His presence while I purchased undergarments and personal articles would be no better than facing the hordes of Wickey alone.
“I’ll tell them at the drapery shop you are with me, and are to use my account, to preclude any unpleasantness on that score,” he mentioned. Harper’s was called a drapery shop, but had expanded over the years to include a great diversity of articles. It was the only large shop in Wickey, actually.
Sir Ludwig was greeted by a servile clerk, fawning on him and doing everything but licking his boots. He was a good spender, then. The clerk prepared to attach himself to my elbow once our business was explained. Kessler got rid of him very effectively. “That will be all, thank you,” he said, and turned away from the man to give me instructions. “Don’t feel obliged to restrict yourself to navy bombazine, Miss Smith. Buy something to do justice to your silken petticoats, and your Continental travels.” He left before I could fashion a setdown to this piece of impertinence. Knew very well he had been bold too, to judge from the haste with which he removed himself from my tongue.
The shop held only one other customer, a woman not known to me, though she suspected my identity. When I saw her whispering in the corner with the clerk I made sure her suspicions were being confirmed. But as she contented herself to spy on me from an aisle away, I ignored her. I also took my host’s advice. I bought a dainty pair of patent slippers that fit beautifully. I was surprised to find such a good quality in Wickey. I also bought the necessary items of undergarments and a bolt of pretty green shot silk, with gold for piping and buttons. Reckless with Kessler’s credit, I helped myself to a nice paisley fringed shawl to pretty up my navy bombazine till the green should be made up, and got some tortoiseshell combs and ribbons of various colors for my hair. The cosmetics counter lured me into other purchases—a bottle of Denmark lotion, a new soap from Austria that had to be whipped up like cream before it was applied, a box of powder, a bottle of scent. Not the average purchases of a governess, but surely required to match my petticoats. Imagine, my
petticoats
were a subject of local gossip! How Ivor would hate it, I thought with a smile, then came abruptly up against this new name. Who was
Ivor
that he should care my petticoats were discussed? No face, no relationship followed the name. A father, brother, beau, husband? No—I wore no wedding ring. Fiancé, perhaps? A fiancé would feel a proprietary interest in his bride’s petticoats.
Sir Ludwig was back in three-quarters of an hour, before I had half finished looking around, with a load of newspapers in his arms, and the word that he had left an order for future issues at the office of the stage. “All set?” he asked briskly.
I had some thoughts of picking up a pair of galoshes, new gloves and several other trifles, but a glance to the mound of items to be presented to him, sitting on the counter already wrapped and a bill beside them, caused me to reconsider. “All set,” I answered. “Those few things there.” His eyes widened at the sight, and I thought it a good time to rush on with my single piece of memory, to distract him.
“Oh, by the way, I have remembered something,” I said, piling his arms high.
“I can’t carry any more. We’ll have to come back,” he said, impatiently.
“No, it’s not that! I remember Ivor.”
“Ivor who?” he asked with interest. The trick worked nicely. He hardly glanced at the bill before nodding at it and saying to the clerk it was fine.
“Well I haven’t remembered his
last
name yet.” I dashed ahead to hold the door open. “But when I thought of everyone talking about my petticoats, it suddenly struck me that Ivor would not like it. He must be someone close to me. A fiancé, I thought he might be.”
“Maybe a brother.”
“Possibly, but would a brother care about that?”
“I would dislike to have Abigail’s petticoats discussed in quite the public way yours have been.”
“Isn’t it horrid? A person has absolutely no privacy when she is in such a position as I am. I daresay the whole village will know before nightfall that I bought two ells of green silk, and a bottle of Denmark Lotion.”
“Several other items as well,” he pointed out, shifting the load. I took some newspapers that were slipping from beneath the bags.
“I—I had no hairbrush, you see, only a comb Miss Wickey lent me, and my shoes were too big, and one can’t hobble along on
one
pair of stockings or—or other things that have to be washed so often.”
“Very true. The town will now have the satisfaction of knowing what goes under the petticoats, and what you wear to bed.”
“You’d think people would have better things to do than gossip so.”