the subjects were even more shocking.
Scrawny, filthy children playing in a gutter beneath a clothesline strung with dead fish.
Hatless women standing under a street-lamp at night to sew.
An unshaven man picking up cigar butts.
An Italian family singing for pennies.
A barefoot boy kneeling on the cobbles to shine a gentleman ’s boots.
A ragged woman with a sickly baby “selling” matches door-to-door.
And many more.
People from the poorest streets of London.
People depicted so boldly, so surely, with such unblinking honesty that they could not possibly have been done from imagination. One who was born to be an artist had seen them to draw them. I knew that feeling of fiery connection between eyes and heart and hand. An inspired artist had looked upon these people.
With passion.
As I looked upon them with passion.
Several of the drawings showed starving old women dozing on the workhouse steps. The poorest of the poor, these “crawlers” or “dosses” seldom found strength to move.
I knew them.
And so, evidently, did Lady Cecily.
But how?
CHAPTER THE SEVENTH
“DR. RAGOSTIN WILL CONTACT YOU DISCREETLY,” I told Lady Theodora, “with his thoughts upon the matter.”
It was fortunate that “Dr. Ragostin” was to supply the thoughts, for mine were in a muddle worse than the most tangled yarn basket that ever was. Out of all the Gordian knot I seized upon only one strand surely, a grey one, another indication that Lady Cecily had not eloped. If her secret correspondence with the shopkeeper’s son had developed into a passionate affair, she would have used a rainbow of sealing-wax other than the grey. No, she had written her letters only in friendship.
She had gone off not for love, but for some other reason.
Which, I sensed, had something to do with her odd diaries. The mirror writing.
And something – although I could not even begin to imagine what – something to do with her extraordinary charcoal drawings.
The latter were so unladylike and disturbing, both in their bold execution and in their choice of subjects, that I had put them back behind the bedroom furniture and had not mentioned them to Lady Theodora. Not yet, if ever. The diaries, however, I wished to take with me.
“For my eyes only,” I assured the lady when I had a chance to speak with her privately. Reporting to her dressing-room, I had found her busy with the younger children, two little boys and a little girl romping around her chamber like puppies while she inspected a somewhat older girl for kempt hair, cleanly ears, et cetera. The girl’s face reminded me very much of Lady Cecily as I had seen her in the photographic portraits Lady Theodora had showed me over tea. Indeed, all of the children, including Lady Cecily, much resembled their mother – generous mouth, brilliant, intelligent eyes.
Lady Theodora shooed the young Alistairs back to the care of their governess when I came in, and beckoned for me to sit close to her.
“I will myself read the diaries,” I explained to her after making my request, “and inform Dr. Ragostin in the most discreet terms of any indications I may find.”
“I have looked through them,” Lady Theodora responded, “and found nothing that seemed harmful, but by all means, if you think it will help – you will take the greatest care of them?”
I assured her I would, remembering just in time to ask her also for a recent portrait of Lady Cecily so that “Dr. Ragostin” could see what the missing miss looked like. Also, I copied down the name and address of the shopkeeper’s son with whom Lady Cecily had been corresponding, in case “Dr. Ragostin” wished to question him.
As I departed, Lady Theodora embraced me, kissing my cheek with the most unexpected strength of feeling.
Therefore I felt quite wretched, like a shameful fraud, as I took a cab back to Dr. Ragostin’s office. Dr. Ragostin this, Dr. Ragostin that; I was a liar, and finding this lost girl was up to –
Scrawny, filthy children playing in a gutter beneath a clothesline strung with dead fish.
Hatless women standing under a street-lamp at night to sew.
An unshaven man picking up cigar butts.
An Italian family singing for pennies.
A barefoot boy kneeling on the cobbles to shine a gentleman ’s boots.
A ragged woman with a sickly baby “selling” matches door-to-door.
And many more.
People from the poorest streets of London.
People depicted so boldly, so surely, with such unblinking honesty that they could not possibly have been done from imagination. One who was born to be an artist had seen them to draw them. I knew that feeling of fiery connection between eyes and heart and hand. An inspired artist had looked upon these people.
With passion.
As I looked upon them with passion.
Several of the drawings showed starving old women dozing on the workhouse steps. The poorest of the poor, these “crawlers” or “dosses” seldom found strength to move.
I knew them.
And so, evidently, did Lady Cecily.
But how?
CHAPTER THE SEVENTH
“DR. RAGOSTIN WILL CONTACT YOU DISCREETLY,” I told Lady Theodora, “with his thoughts upon the matter.”
It was fortunate that “Dr. Ragostin” was to supply the thoughts, for mine were in a muddle worse than the most tangled yarn basket that ever was. Out of all the Gordian knot I seized upon only one strand surely, a grey one, another indication that Lady Cecily had not eloped. If her secret correspondence with the shopkeeper’s son had developed into a passionate affair, she would have used a rainbow of sealing-wax other than the grey. No, she had written her letters only in friendship.
She had gone off not for love, but for some other reason.
Which, I sensed, had something to do with her odd diaries. The mirror writing.
And something – although I could not even begin to imagine what – something to do with her extraordinary charcoal drawings.
The latter were so unladylike and disturbing, both in their bold execution and in their choice of subjects, that I had put them back behind the bedroom furniture and had not mentioned them to Lady Theodora. Not yet, if ever. The diaries, however, I wished to take with me.
“For my eyes only,” I assured the lady when I had a chance to speak with her privately. Reporting to her dressing-room, I had found her busy with the younger children, two little boys and a little girl romping around her chamber like puppies while she inspected a somewhat older girl for kempt hair, cleanly ears, et cetera. The girl’s face reminded me very much of Lady Cecily as I had seen her in the photographic portraits Lady Theodora had showed me over tea. Indeed, all of the children, including Lady Cecily, much resembled their mother – generous mouth, brilliant, intelligent eyes.
Lady Theodora shooed the young Alistairs back to the care of their governess when I came in, and beckoned for me to sit close to her.
“I will myself read the diaries,” I explained to her after making my request, “and inform Dr. Ragostin in the most discreet terms of any indications I may find.”
“I have looked through them,” Lady Theodora responded, “and found nothing that seemed harmful, but by all means, if you think it will help – you will take the greatest care of them?”
I assured her I would, remembering just in time to ask her also for a recent portrait of Lady Cecily so that “Dr. Ragostin” could see what the missing miss looked like. Also, I copied down the name and address of the shopkeeper’s son with whom Lady Cecily had been corresponding, in case “Dr. Ragostin” wished to question him.
As I departed, Lady Theodora embraced me, kissing my cheek with the most unexpected strength of feeling.
Therefore I felt quite wretched, like a shameful fraud, as I took a cab back to Dr. Ragostin’s office. Dr. Ragostin this, Dr. Ragostin that; I was a liar, and finding this lost girl was up to –
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