“Yes, thanks.” Julia put her hand in his and let him help her up.
His hand tightened briefly around hers before he released it. “All right now?” he asked softly.
“All right”? Not exactly the term she would have used. “Confused as all hell” was more like it. But he had, she thought, swallowing a slightly hysterical laugh, succeeded admirably in getting her mind off her mother.
“Yes, perfectly, fine,” Julia babbled, shoving her hair back behind her ears. “There are a whole bunch of little rooms in the back, all crammed with stuff. It will probably go faster if we each pick a different room. Maybe we start at the very back and work forward? I’m guessing the older stuff is probably pushed farther back.”
“All right,” he said, and if he was amused he had the courtesy not to show it. “Let’s split up and reconvene in—an hour?”
“Sounds good to me,” said Julia. She pushed open a door at random, revealing an ancient iron bedstead and cheap chest of drawers, all piled with a depressing jumble of decomposing cardboard boxes, smelling heavily of must. She paused in the doorway, her palm against the old wood. “Holler if you find anything good.”
“Who knows?” Nick’s slow smile did unfair things to her nervous system. “Maybe we’ll find Imogen Grantham’s diary.”
Herne Hill, 1849
“Vittoria, Vittoria!”
The gaslight glinted prettily off Evie’s golden curls as she stood by the pianoforte, warbling an Italian aria. Sophie Sturgis, accompanying her, was at least half a beat behind, and Evie’s Italian pronunciation could, at the kindest, be termed “eccentric,” but the audience called for an encore all the same.
Sitting on a settee a few yards away, Imogen smiled encouragingly at Evie and then hastily pulled in her feet as two of the younger Sturgises came careening around the side of the sofa, the one in pursuit of the other.
“Gently, my loves, gently!” called Mrs. Sturgis, without leaving her own comfortable chair. For a moment, the two children, eight and six, were the very picture of innocence—before running whooping into the next room.
Imogen suppressed a smile and turned to her left, ready to share her thoughts with Gavin—only to remember that it was Ned Sturgis on the couch beside her, not Gavin.
Fortunate for her that Ned’s dazzled eyes were fixed on Evie. Imogen dropped her eyes to her hands, fighting a curious sense of dislocation. It scared her how dependent she had become upon Gavin, how flat and dull everything felt without him, as though she were only alive in those stolen hours and everything else a curious dream.
When, really, it ought to be quite the other way around.
Arthur wasn’t with her tonight. He had a dinner at his club, but that was no matter. Just a comfortable family party, Mrs. Sturgis had said, no need to stand on ceremony, and Ned would see Imogen and Evie escorted safely back. Imogen had no doubt Ned would, nor any doubts as to why his mother had organized the party; the young man appeared to be head over heels over Evie. Imogen suspected this evening was something of an audition, to see how well Evie would fit within the boisterous Sturgis family circle. The fact that Evie was entirely unaware of this could only stand to her credit with Mr. and Mrs. Sturgis.
Evie was in deep conversation with Sophie Sturgis over the sheet music piled high on a table by the piano.
Imogen took a deep breath and recalled herself to her duty as guest. “Your sister plays very prettily,” she said to Ned Sturgis.
“Hmm, pardon? Oh. Yes, yes, she does.” Poor boy, he was so obviously flustered, caught out in a moment of reverie. The whiskers he had so proudly cultivated only made him look younger still. Manfully he offered back, “Miss Evie sings like an angel.”
Miss Evie sang like a not very well-trained seventeen-year-old girl, but Imogen appreciated the accolade all the same. “Perhaps you ought to tell her so yourself,” she suggested gently.
“Do you think? I shouldn’t want to be forward—that is—”
His earnestness was painfully endearing. “Everyone likes a little honest praise,” said Imogen encouragingly.
And Ned Sturgis was such a nice boy.
A nice boy? Imogen caught herself up short. She was thinking like a dowager, like someone’s elderly mother or maiden aunt.
Well, that was what she was, wasn’t she? In calendar years she might be far closer to Ned’s age than to his mother’s, but Imogen’s position in life placed her firmly on the sidelines of the room with Mrs. Sturgis, a respectable matron with ten years of marriage behind her. Even if Imogen hadn’t been behaving like one recently.
What would they say, these Sturgises, if they knew she was off cavorting with an artist when she was meant to be at the dressmaker’s or confined to her room with the headache? Would Mrs. Sturgis draw back her skirt as Imogen walked down the street? That thought didn’t unduly disturb her. But what about Evie? There was no doubt her reputation would be tainted by association.
Imogen should break it off; she knew that. At least, she knew that at times like this. When she was with Gavin, it was a very different thing. Then, she just wanted to burrow into his arms and never let go.
It wasn’t hurting anyone, Imogen told herself, as she had told herself time and again.
At least, not yet.
Evie finished her song, a Scots ballad, to another round of enthusiastic applause. Like a cork released from a bottle, the two youngest Sturgises careened towards their older brother. “You promised you’d play tiddlywinks!”
Ned looked from one to the other, obviously torn. “But Miss Evie—”
“Is quite done singing,” said Evie gaily, joining them. “I shouldn’t want to keep you from your obligations.”
Rising, with more alacrity than grace, Ned said, “You’ll join us?”
“Perhaps by and by,” said Evie, smiling prettily at him, in a way that Imogen knew meant “no,” even if poor Ned didn’t.
Ned suffered himself to be tugged away by his younger siblings, but his gaze was fixed on Evie, his heart in his eyes.
“What a very nice young man he is,” murmured Imogen.
“Ned Sturgis?” Evie looked at Imogen in surprise. “I suppose he’s well enough.”
“I believe that young man is carrying something of a torch for you.” Only half-jokingly, Imogen added, “Say the word and you could be mistress of all you survey.”
“Ned?” Evie dismissed the idea with casual scorn. “Ned is just a boy. He won’t be thinking of anything like that, oh, for years yet.”
“That boy is five years older than you are,” Imogen pointed out, with some amusement. “And already a partner in his father’s firm.”
“Oh, trade.” The contempt in Evie’s voice made Imogen’s eyebrows go up. She’d never heard her sound that way before, not Evie, who never had an evil word to say of anyone or anything.
“I shouldn’t have thought to hear you mocking trade,” said Imogen. The Grantham import business had paid for the dress on Evie’s back and the gold locket around her neck. “Your father is in the same line of work.”
“Yes, but Papa doesn’t really concern himself with it, does he?” Evie turned eagerly in her seat on the settee, all ribbons and flounces. “He just signs papers when his man of business brings them. He’s really more of—more of a gentleman scholar!”
“He does rather more than that,” said Imogen mildly, trying not to let her disconcertion show. “He’s in the offices several days a week.”
Or so he claimed. She suspected he spent a great deal of that time napping in his club.
Imogen tried another tack. “I had heard from Mrs. Sturgis,” she said carefully, “that Ned was to spend some time in Lisbon to look after his father’s business interests there.”
“Yes, another office,” said Evie dismissively. “It’s all papers and accounts and nothing the least bit interesting. It might as well be Perth or Liverpool. It’s not as though there would be any society there. Any proper society.”
“Proper society?”
Imogen echoed. This snobbishness was as unexpected as it was new. Their neighbors, the circles in which they moved, all were engaged in some sort of business and proud of it, many only a generation or two removed from life above the shop.
With one exception: Augustus Fotheringay-Vaughn had been full of “society” during his calls that past summer, improbable stories of this baroness and that earl and all the good and the great with whom he claimed to mingle.
“I would hardly call this improper, would you?” said Imogen lightly. “Mrs. Sturgis would be very offended to be thought anything other than the soul of propriety.”
“That’s not what I meant.…” Evie fussed uncomfortably with her skirts. “You know. Proper town society.”
“No,” said Imogen firmly. “I don’t know.” Taking a chance, she added, “Nor, I imagine, does Mr. Fotheringay-Vaughn, for all his bold words.”
She knew she had hit her mark when Evie’s cheeks turned a bright, vivid red. “Augustus moves in very exalted circles.”
Imogen looked sharply at her stepdaughter. “Augustus, is it?”
Evie looked away. “In any event,” she said hastily, changing the subject with alarming alacrity, “Ned may be five years older than I am, but he has no dignity. Just look at him playing tiddlywinks with the children!”
With glorious unconcern for the state of his trousers, Ned had folded his long legs beneath him and was sitting on the hearthrug with his siblings, a younger sister hanging around his neck, a younger brother by his side. With the firelight limning them in a warm glow, they made a charming domestic picture.
“I think it’s rather sweet,” said Imogen.
“Very sweet,” said Evie, in tones of worldly condescension that sat comically on the lips of sheltered seventeen. “When I marry, I want it to be someone older, someone—someone with some knowledge of the world.”
Someone like Augustus Fotheringay-Vaughn?
“At your age,” said Imogen slowly, “I thought so, as well.”
She remembered the garden, in Cornwall, her father’s frail hand in hers, as he tried, so very hard, to make her see sense. She had been as oblivious as Evie, convinced that she was a woman grown and equal to anything the world might throw at her.
And Arthur, whatever his shortcomings, was a well-meaning man. She couldn’t say the same of Fotheringay-Vaughn.
Evie wrinkled her nose. “I didn’t mean someone old like Papa,” she began, and then caught herself. “Not that Papa’s not lovely, of course.”
No, just geriatric, by Evie’s standards. How old must Fortheringay-Vaughn be? Imogen put him at thirty, at least. Not quite as wide as the gap between Imogen and Arthur, but close.
“I was your age when I married your papa,” Imogen said soberly, “and your papa wasn’t so very much older than various persons of our acquaintance of whom you might be thinking. He was still quite dashing when I first met him.”
Evie shook her head lightly, uncomprehending, the comparison between her father and Fotheringay-Vaughn a nonsensical one to her.
How to reach her, how to talk some sense into her? Not that Imogen was exactly a pillar of good sense at the moment.
She placed a hand over her stepdaughter’s, saying in a low, urgent voice, “Do not let yourself be rushed into making a too-hasty choice. Evie! Do you understand me?”
Evie was spared answering by one of the younger Misses Sturgis—Imogen never could tell them apart—who bobbed a quick curtsy, saying, all in one breath, “With your pardon, Mrs. Grantham, Sophie’s agreed to play if we would like to dance and would Miss Grantham make one of our set?”
“Go on,” said Imogen. It was no use pursuing the conversation now. Evie wasn’t hearing a word she said, not really. “I’ve been wanting to speak to Mrs. Sturgis.”
She hadn’t really—Mrs. Sturgis was a wonderful, warmhearted woman with two topics of conversation, her husband and her children—but at least Imogen knew Evie would come to no harm romping with the Sturgis children. It might, she hoped, soften her heart towards Ned. Or at least start her thinking.
It didn’t have to be Ned Sturgis. But someone kind, someone young, someone who would value Evie for herself and blush at her name as Ned Sturgis did. Not a fortune hunter. Not a Fotheringay-Vaughn.
How far had it gone? Imogen excoriated herself for her blindness. She ought to have known; she ought to have realized. All those “teas” with Eliza Cranbourne … Evie had never liked Eliza, not even when they were children.
If Fotheringay-Vaughn had resorted to meeting Evie in secret, it meant that he had abandoned the hope of winning her by normal means. Were they already plotting an elopement? Not that an elopement was the only possible expedient. It would be just as easy to get her with child and demand a hasty marriage as a means of hushing up potential scandal.
Just thinking about it made Imogen distinctly sick to her stomach.
As she looked at Evie, so innocently romping with the Sturgis children, it all seemed like a sick fancy. But there had been that telling “Augustus.”
She would have to be more vigilant, that was all. Guilt gnawed at her like rot, eating away from the inside out. If she had been at home, rather than indulging herself in adulterous pleasures, would Evie have been spared? Imogen couldn’t help but feel, obscurely, that this was somehow all her fault, a punishment for her own sins. She had tried to tell herself that no one would be harmed by her liaison with Gavin, that Arthur would never miss what he didn’t want anyway, and what Evie didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her.
But it did. It could.
Imogen folded her cold hands in her lap, twining her fingers so tightly together that she could feel the bones through the lace of her gloves.
She would deal with Fotheringay-Vaughn first. And then—
No. She couldn’t think of it. Not now.
SEVENTEEN
Herne Hill, 2009
Julia did find a diary, but it wasn’t Imogen Grantham’s.
She tried to be methodical, but it was hard, when her ancestors’ chosen filing method appeared to be “just shove it over there.” Not to mention that her mind was largely elsewhere, scuttling back and forth between the memories evoked by her mother’s painting and that confusing, entirely unexpected kiss.
She couldn’t figure out what to make of Nick. Entrepreneur on the make or genuinely decent guy? The way he’d held her when she’d lost it—the thought of that still made her wince—and the way he’d talked about his family both seemed to signal the latter. But then she remembered her first impressions of him and those offhand comments about value and valuations.
It didn’t help, Julia thought wryly, that she had all the emotional stability of a wet dishrag right now.
It wasn’t just that she felt emotionally wrung out; she was off-balance, too. She’d always taken it for granted, part of the framework of her life, that her mother had been, for lack of a better word, a flake, that she must not have really cared very much about Julia. No one had ever said as much, but it had been there in the subtext. All that her father ever said about her mother was that she was an artist or “artistic,” the tone of the word subtly pejorative.
He hadn’t said anything to Julia about the woman who had tucked her in at night, the woman who had painted that picture. There had been so much love in it.
Julia rubbed the heels of her hands against her eyes. Okay, now she was getting silly, attributing emotions to paint on paper. If she looked at it again, would she see and feel the same things? She didn’t know. She wasn’t sure she wanted to try.
Looking down, Julia realized that she had just emptied and refilled the same box without paying the slightest bit of attention to any of the contents. More slowly, forcing herself to pay attention, she went through the box again. There was a collection of records, painfully quaint in their square cardboard cases, mostly folk and rock from the seventies: David Bowie, Gary Glitter, Roxy Music. Julia set the records aside and kept digging.
Had these people ever thrown anythin
g out? There were defunct toasters and buttoned boots and an obscure metal item that she finally identified as a primitive sort of curling iron. The photo albums were tempting, with their sepia-toned pictures of women with World War II–era hair and ludicrous bathing costumes, but far too late to be anything of the sort she was looking for.
Imogen Grantham, Julia reminded herself. Gavin Thorne. Missing paintings.
She found World War I–era letters and late Victorian journals, a whole set of them, dated from the 1870s to ’90s. They were interesting in their own way, an odd compendium of recipes, sketches, quick thoughts, and personal reminders, but far too late for her purposes. If she was in her twenties, in the 1870s, Olivia Parsons—Julia checked the name on the flyleaf—wouldn’t have been around in the 1840s.
It was while she was moving the Olivia oeuvre out of the way that Julia found the other, smaller book, buried beneath Olivia’s larger, heavier journals. Unlike Olivia’s handsome, leather-bound journal, this one had a cover of stiffened paper, patterned in what might once have been paisley but had turned with dirt and age to a murky swirl, the spine and edges protected with faded red fabric.
Evangeline Grantham, January 14, 1846, was written on the flyleaf in an elaborate, curly script.
It was the right time period, even if it was the wrong name. Imogen … Evangeline … Phonetically similar? Perhaps Cousin Caroline’s family tree had gotten it wrong? Julia couldn’t remember an Evangeline in there.
She flipped the book open, skimming passages at random. The paper had been cheap; it had darkened with time, crumbling at the edges, but, mercifully, the ink hadn’t faded too badly. It didn’t take more than a few entries for it to become clear that Evangeline couldn’t be Imogen; she spoke of being moved from the nursery to a proper bedroom on the first floor, and there were many references to both “Papa,” the owner of the establishment, and Papa’s second wife, who appeared to be in constant tension with a character known as “Aunt Jane.” Evangeline’s sympathies were clearly with her stepmother, not with Aunt Jane.